Debate Society
Once again this year , the Wednesday lunchtime debate was highly popular , with crowds of students from all years packing in to hear and join in the cutand-thrust of opinion – and to support their house . In fact , House was the key word this season , as Odin had previously won the shield for two years running , and debaters from Thor and Zeus were determined not to let them walk away with it three times in a row . This added an unusually taut sense of competition to what is always a tense series of encounters . The competition followed the traditional pattern of three sets of three debates , with Odin , Thor , and Zeus debating the other in turn , and the non-debating house every week providing chair and time-keeper . The series got off to an explosive start with the proposition ‘ this house believes that school grades should be abolished ,’ which raised great excitement , with students vying to make comments from the floor . The motion was passed to deafening acclaim . Zeus was knocked out early in a series of hard-fought defeats , over propositions including : ‘ this house believes that polygamy and polyandry ( having more than one wife or husband ) should be allowed worldwide ’; ‘ robots should replace teachers in the classroom ’ and ‘ men are more emotional than women ’. Though , as always , the teams of three students included one year 9 , one Middle Schooler , and one Senior , Zeus were hard-pushed to field veteran debaters of the quality of Teigist Taye , Adam Parker and Najma Bishar ( Odin ), or Anya Gera ( Thor ). There were some remarkably eloquent year 9 novices , too , however , including Anya ’ s younger sister , Nadia , who was speaking for the
first time . ‘ Introducing Nadia to debating is what made this season different for me ,’ Anya said . ‘ One of the first debates she did was that ‘ Donald Trump would make a good president .’ We were , luckily , on the opposing side . We spent all evening carefully sculpting a list of [ unflattering ] adjectives to describe Trump – as you can imagine , the list was long !’ The final , between Odin and Thor , with the proposition ‘ this house believes that religion does more harm
40 2017 | Hillcrest Magazine